I did my ISTE session yesterday, Beyond Googling: Structuring Inquiry. It was the first time I’ve that session (and I’ll embed the session soon, but I couldn’t capture the embed code on the iPad.) It’s always interesting to try to do a session in a big room that is something other than a talk. And I thought I’d try to write down a little bit about what I think about inquiry.

Over the journey that has been SLA, I’ve become really deeply aware of how inquiry is a process. The five core values of Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation and Reflection are at the heart of the inquiry process for me. (And analysis… that’s probably the unnamed sixth core value.) And it is an iterative process that we engage in. But also at the heart of the inquiry process is that the person engaging in the inquiry – the learner – actually
cares about the questions they are asking. I think it’s possible to "fake it," and yes, our level of investment in different projects can and does change, but at root, the inquiry process sets the stage for kids to care about their learning.

And, for me, the inquiry process isn’t just asking questions. And it certainly isn’t us asking questions we know the answers to. It is about creating the environment where kids can see the connections between what they are learning and their lives… and for me, they can do that by asking questions that matter to them, find answers to those questions, and then build stuff that matters around that answer. David Jakes and I were talking about this, and we teased out a short idea of how that could look using cell mitosis. (And remember, I’m an English teacher, so be kind.)

Traditional: Use a combination of lecture, textbook, video to teach kids about cell mitosis, students may have to draw examples, take a test, etc…

Something closer to inquiry: Give kids access to all the information, so they can learn it themselves, teacher can work with small groups, address mis-steps and misunderstandings, have them create artifacts about cell mitosis that they can present, etc…

Inquiry: Give a short explanation of cell mitosis and then explain how cell mitosis, unchecked, can cause a tumor / cancer. Give kids ways to investigate how cell mitosis functions within the body. And have them pick one system / phenomenon within the body where cell mitosis is important and have them create an artifact of their learning around that, explaining cell mitosis through the lens of the questions they asked and answered around that process. How many more students might be more interested in learning about cell mitosis if it allows them to ask questions about how and why they lost someone close to them?

Now, inquiry isn’t at all a perfect way to structure a classroom. It can take more time, it can be harder to cover every last piece of a subject, and it can make assessment more difficult for teachers because student work can vary greatly. Importantly, it can also be really complex for students too. But there ways to mitigate those problems. And they are the problems that, for me, I want to grapple with because the benefits are so great.

This post really just scratches the surface, but these ideas formed the basis of what I talked about in my session at ISTE. And I realize that as much as I talk about inquiry, I haven’t written much about it. I’m going to try to change that in the coming days.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad